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INFRASTRUCTURE Rush Hour The ambitious National Highway Development Project could provide a lesson or two on how government projects should be run. And the outlay of Rs 54,000 crore should keep the Keynesians happy. By Ashish Gupta
Beat this for scale: 13,151 kilometres of road to be constructed; a project cost of Rs 54,000 crore; and 130 contracts, worth Rs 18,000 crore, awarded thus far. Beat this for span: When complete, one part of the project, the Golden Quadrilateral will connect Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, and Delhi. Another, the North-South East-West Corridor will link Srinagar to Kanyakumari, and Silchar to Porbandar. Beat this for historical value: In the first fifty years post independence India saw the construction of around 13,000 kilometres of national highways. This project will, over the next eight years, see the construction of 13,151 kilometres of national highways. And beat this for stun-value: the completion date of the GG has been moved up from December 2004 to December 2003; that of the N-S&E-w Corridor from December 2009 to December 2007. And a report prepared by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter says, ''The current pace of execution of the GG project shows a degree of commitment not usually associated with government projects.''
A few minutes from town, the road branches, one shoot takes a gradual curve up a slope and then, suddenly, comes to an end in a jumble of tractors, graders, excavators, and construction workers. Their immediate objective is to convert the narrow road they are on into a four-lane highway connecting Ghaziabad and Lucknow and to build a 50-metre-long overpass on the road connecting Hapur to Aligarh. The overpass is half done, and standing precariously close to the edge, G. Umakant, a deputy project manager for KNR Constructions Ltd, is firing instructions to the army of workers below. Work would have ended by December, he rues, had it not been for some villagers of Hapur who, unhappy with the compensation they've received for their land, filed a complaint with the local administrator. Umakant, a 32-year-old civil engineer from Andhra Pradesh who is already a veteran of several government projects, hopes the issue will be resolved soon enough for him to meet his January 2002 deadline.
But predictable gripes over land-acquisition are only minor hiccups in India's most ambitious infrastructure project since independence. Christened the National Highway Development Project, the initiative seeks to build 13,151 kilometres of six-lane (or four-lane) highways and has the blessings of the highest office in the land. ''These projects will not only change the face of road transport in India, they will have a lasting impact on the economy,'' says Major-General B.C. Khanduri, the minister of state in charge of road transport and highways. No fullstops on this highway Ignore, for a minute, the bullishness MSDW has shown over the project; try and forget that the completion dates of the project have been brought forward (what's brought forward can always be pushed back); and look at the other facts. One, that most of the finances for the project have already been tied up. ''The Cabinet has cleared expenditure worth Rs 30,300 crore for the first two years; there is therefore no need to run to it for every extra paisa we need,'' says Khanduri. Financial closure would mean there is no danger of the project suffering the malaise most common to government initiatives: suffering time and cost overruns simply because the required money didn't come in at the right time. Two, that contracts for six-laning 4,000 kilometres of the highways have already been awarded, a revolution, no less, when the government's track record-in past projects part-funded by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank the norm is five-to-six years-is taken into consideration.
''We have already taken care of the most difficult part in the GG project, the awarding of contracts,'' says Deepak Dasgupta, the chairman of nhai. Three, that work is already apace: 130 contracts have been awarded. By August 31, 2001, work had been completed on 987 kilometres out of the 5,851 kilometres that constitute the GG; work on another 3,803 kilometres is afoot; and contracts for the remaining 1,305 kilometres are to be awarded by December 2001. Of the n-s and e-w corridor's coverage of 7,300 kilometres, work has been completed on 675 kilometres and is progressing on another 739. Contracts for the remainder are to be issued between 2002 and 2005. ''By awarding contracts nearly two years in advance, the government is ensuring that there is enough time for private players to complete their projects,'' says Dasgupta. To accelerate things, the government has indicated its willingness to lend up to 40 per cent of the cost involved for those private companies and contractors who have undertaken parts of the project on a Build-Operate-Transfer (private companies or contractors build the roads, operate them for a certain period of time-the duration depends on the project in question-and then transfer the roads to the government) basis. Then, there are bonuses for contractors who complete work ahead of schedule and fines for those who overrun their schedules. That could explain why Khanduri, a 67-year-old civil engineer from the Military Training College, Pune, is confident that things are well in control. ''We will prove that despite being a government agency, we can complete projects on time.'' 1 | 2 |
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There's
nothing Kiplingesque about the Grand Trunk Road, Sher Shah Suri's
contribution to Indian locomotion, at Hapur, a dusty little town barely 80
minutes away from Delhi by road.
